Only 25 % of PAN Card Holders had Linked with Aadhaar

Government has mandated to link the 12-digit biometric Aadhaar (which is an authentication issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India – UIDAI) with Permanent Account Number PAN Card, (which is a 10 digit alphanumeric number allotted by the income tax department) through an amendment to tax proposals in the Finance Bill for 2017-18 which was applicable from 1st July 2017 with a purpose of regulating tax evasion through use of multiple PAN Cards from the system.

The Supreme Court had earlier validated the Income Tax Act provision which is linkage of Aadhaar with PAN allotment or for filing returns, but there was a stay on its implementation. But it finally came into being in The Finance Act for 2017-18.

Those who are yet to apply for a new PAN will also have to link the Aadhaar enrolment ID to the Principal Director General of Income-tax (Systems) or Director General of Income-tax (Systems) or the person authorised by the said authorities . And both these documents have been mandated for filing the returns or opening a new bank account or making a transaction over 50,000.

According to the reports by the ministry of Finance, only 25 % of PAN card holders had linked with Aadhaar. Which means out of 32.41 Crore PAN holders only 8.19 Crore were linked with authenticated Aadhaar, also, 11.46 lakh PAN cards were put on to a side because of their duplicity. And 1,544 PANs were marked false as they were in the name of non-existent people.

IT departments are sending alerts to the citizens about the Aadhaar and PAN link which has been mandated for filing returns. The due date for filing returns is on July 31st. Hence procedure for the linkage is still open.

Furthermore, there are rumours that those who do not link the two documents will have their PAN cancelled. Also for those who are not subjected to income tax return but having both PAN and Aadhaar are mandatorily required to link them as per section 139AA.

As of now the government has not notified a date from which PAN cards not linked become invalid, taxpayers who are yet to link the Aadhaar and PAN can do so until the next notice from the tax department.